Column: Unite America

About 15 years ago, American historian and presidential adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote a book titled "The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society." Schlesinger fretted for the future of "E Pluribus Unum" and included an appendix with a syllabus that he felt would help to keep America united. It is in this vein that E.D. Hirsch Jr., author of works like "Cultural Literacy" and "The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools," argues for a common school curriculum that will help create a united American nation.

Hirsch demonstrates the importance of context in our educational system by including a passage about cricket that left me, like most Americans, baffled. Most of the words were ones that I knew the meaning of, but I could not "comprehend" this passage because I have virtually no knowledge of the game of cricket.

As Hirsch and Schlesinger would argue, our educational system needs to do a better job of creating a core body of knowledge that would function as a basic literacy for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, creed or socioeconomic status.

While I have read Schlesinger's book and other attacks and critiques of multiculturalism, I personally support such initiatives. When I served as a graduate assistant at The University of Kansas' Multicultural Resource Center, I gained first-hand knowledge of the potential for creating a truly open space for all cultures on campus. That potential was not always realized, and I came to acknowledge that some of the criticisms of multicultural education and advocacy were legitimate. However, I also witnessed the importance that having a space dedicated to multiculturalism had for many students at KU.

As an instructor, I have experienced considerable frustration at the ignorance of many of my students regarding American history and culture. I blame the students and our educational system, which has not done a particularly good job at defining, let alone teaching, the basic elements of a core curriculum.

For many of us in our professional lives, there were certain skills and certain knowledge we had to master to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Why should we accept anything less for our role as U.S. citizens?

Most immigrants who have become U.S. citizens possess knowledge and understanding of what it means to be an American that would shame most of us native-born citizens.

As Abraham Lincoln once wrote, "Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American ... And in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars."

Amen to that!

Nicolas Shump is a doctoral student in American studies at The University of Kansas. He can be reached at Nico1225@sunflower.com.

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There use to be a core curriculum. It was Reading, Writing, Arithmatic (math for those less educated).

-I believe in minority rights, the individual being the largest minority.
-Democracy is two wolfs and a lamb voting on what to have for supper, liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
-I love my country, it is the government I fear.

We cannot have both multiculturalism and national unity. Unity means submerging racial and ethnic cultures into a national identity and loyalty to our common vital interests and national security. It means that legal immigrants are ever encouraged to become first and foremost Americans.